10/13/2011 University Of Minnesota Sets Up Bedbug Resource Center

ST. PAUL — The University of Minnesota has set up a resource center where homeowners and businesses can learn about fighting bedbug infestations, which have become increasingly common over the past few years.

The university launched its bedbug initiative Tuesday that also includes plans to conduct seminars about the growing bedbug problem around the state.

Increased travel, changing insecticide use and a lack of public awareness has caused a resurgence of bedbug populations, according to entomologist Stephen Kells. The oval-shaped, flat, brown bugs are about the size of a wood tick and feed on the blood of people and some animals. Bedbug bites may cause some people break out in a rash, while others see few symptoms beyond a red spot.

By crawling into travelers’ suitcases and clothes, they can easily spread from an infested hotel room or residence. The bugs are difficult to detect because they hide in cracks and crevices, Kells said.

Experts warn that individuals who try to use insecticides to kill bedbugs could harm themselves or others, and they recommend seeking assistance from a professional pest control company.

The university’s resource center is funded with nearly $91,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

Beat the Bug: http://www.bedbugs.umn.edu

Continue Reading More: University Of Minnesota Sets Up Bedbug Resource Center

10/7/2011 Arizona’s Maricopa County Deals With Bedbugs: 300% Increase Since 2008

You’ve heard about the problems with them back east. Now the valley has its own issues with bed bugs.

The tiny parasites can be a nuisance. “Getting bitten by a bed bug may cause irritation or itching,” says University of Arizona entomologist Dawn Gouge. “Some people develop quite significant welts.”

But unlike mosquitoes, bed bugs aren’t disease carriers. As Gouge puts it, “You will not contract a deadly disease, or even get sick.”

Bed bugs have been in the United States for hundreds of years. Gouge says it’s believed they came to America in the bedding onboard colonist ships. They were mostly eradicated with the use of pesticides in the 1940s, but have been making a comeback in recent years. The first time she encountered a bed bug case in Arizona was eleven years ago. They turned up on an Indian reservation in the northeastern part of the state.

But bed bugs thrive in more populated areas because humans are their “food source.” Gouge says they are invading Maricopa County. “We’ve seen an over 300 percent increase in bed bug incidents between 2008 and 2010, and further increases in 2011.”

One of the places those bed bugs may be is at your kids’ school. Several valley districts that we talked to said they don’t have a bed bug problem, but Gouge says “If your school has not had an incident, then it’s only a matter of time before it does. They are certainly showing up pretty much everywhere people go.”

The good news, Gourge says, is that most schools are taking a proactive approach when it comes to bed bugs.

“As a result, many of them have contacted and are already training their school nurses, their facility managers, and even their faculty, so that they are ready and able to identify and deal with bed bugs when they show up, if they show up in the classroom.”

Gouge says that over the counter pesticides are “not” effective in getting rid of bed bugs. She says one way to minimize the chance of a bed bug infestation in your home is to wash your bedding at least once a week. If you do get them in their house, call an exterminator.

By clicking on the link below, you can access a PDF file that has tips on how to protect yourself from bed bugs. It also lists Arizona laws that deal with the pests.

Continue Reading More: Arizona’s Maricopa County Deals With Bedbugs

9/27/2011 Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

Bed bugs have become an increasing problem at hotels across the country. This week, dozens of experts invaded Chicago to gather for a summit about how to deal with those pesky bugs. They have some innovative ways to get rid of them.

 They are adaptable and not all pesticides work on them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions residents to get professional help for bed bugs. The agency found over 100 people got sick and one woman died after using bed bugs pesticides.

Experts in town this week are swapping information about the latest techniques to keep bed bugs at bay.

The little guys are the stuff of nightmares. Bed bugs can range from the size of a sesame seed to the size of an apple seed. Their food source is you — so what better place to get to you than those overnight hours when we’re sleeping? It’s a veritable buffet for the bugs. As disturbing as that notion may be, they are not life threatening.

“There is awareness of this pest, but people are freaked out and the wrong messages are sticking,” said bed bug central/entomologist Allison Taisey.

Pest control specialists will swarm Rosemont for the next two days for the Bed Bug University North American Summit.

To start, there are special detections devices. There is a kind of coaster for your bed leg: the bugs can crawl in but can’t crawl out. There is an active monitor, which emits heat and CO2 like a person, irresistible to bed bugs.

Mattress and bed spring covers will allow you to see the bugs, as there are no nooks and crannies to hide.

To control the insects:

• Heat has proven effective if the item or area is heated to 120 degrees for an hour.
• There are portable heaters for rooms.
• And there is a device to kill any bed bugs you make have picked up on your journey.

Experts say the key to detecting and controlling the bugs is getting professional help.

“They’re really hard to find for one thing, and the products we have available to us&it takes a trained professional to use them,” said Taisey.

The Safer Pest Control Project has been monitoring pest activity in the Chicago area for 17 years. The project reports bed bugs are particularly a problem in multiple-dwelling structures — public and private.

The project’s executive director says, while the beds bug may not lead to the health problems of other pests, controlling these particular bugs can be more expensive.

“bed bugs, they don’t discern between any economics, cleanliness. It’s like, you are the food, so you are like the most delicious thing they’ve ever met. They need you to survive,” said Safer Pest Control’s Rachel Lerner Rosenberg.

The bugs can be hard to see. The marks can be hard to see. And some people don’t react to bed bugs — so some people may not know they have been bitten.

Some good things to know: they don’t fly, they don’t jump and they are not known to carry disease.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

9/22/2011 How Texas Wildfires Have Fueled Bedbugs

With many Texans displaced by recent wildfires, bed bugs may become another unwanted irritation during relocation, said Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Texas AgriLife Research experts.

“With so many people being displaced and having to find accommodations in hotels or motels, it’s important for them to be aware of the possibility of encountering bed bugs and to know something about their behavior and biology,” said Wizzie Brown, AgriLife Extension integrated pest management specialist in Travis County.

Brown said bed bugs have been a growing problem throughout the U.S. and beyond, especially in urban areas with a large volume of visitors.

And national media have noted complaints of bed bugs by people in accommodations ranging from low-end motels to five-star hotels.

“However, I also get calls from student housing on campus, people in apartments, in homes and other locations,” Brown said.

“It’s not just hotels or motels. People can even  be exposed to bed bugs while staying in the home of a friend who doesn’t know they have them.”

Bed bugs often leave dried blood or rust-colored stains in mattresses, especially on the mattress folds and tufts, she said.

“When you get to your hotel or motel room, pull back the bedding to expose the mattress and box springs and check the mattress, especially the areas near the seams and tags,” Brown said. “It’s also a good idea to inspect the headboard as well as items near the bed, such as a lamp base or nightstand.”

While bed bugs, as their name implies, prefer beds and bedding, they also can be found under cushions, behind picture frames, near lamp stands, behind baseboards, in back of electrical switch plates and in other locations, she said.

Inspect the room where you plan to stay before bringing up your belongings, Brown suggested.

If there’s evidence of bed bugs upon a thorough room inspection, request a different room or, if possible, go to a different location.

“But the more hotels and motels you stay in, the greater the probability of being bitten by bed bugs,” said Dr. Roger Gold, urban and public health entomologist with AgriLife Research in College Station.

“They have really proliferated over the past several years throughout Texas and the rest of the U.S.”

Gold said newly hatched bed bugs are about the same size as a sesame seed, only flatter, and can hide in a variety of cracks, crevices, nooks and crannies.

A large adult bed bug, about the size of an apple seed, can be mistaken for a tick.

Brown and Gold said there are some steps travelers can take to protect themselves from these pests and reduce the risk of bringing them home.

The first is to have housekeeping vacuum thoroughly to remove as many bed bugs and their eggs from mattresses, box springs, carpets and other areas, concentrating particularly on mattress and box springs seams, tufts and edges, as well as where baseboards and carpet meet.

Entomologists say bed bugs are thought to locate their human hosts by body heat and the carbon dioxide exhaled during respiration, but some bed bugs may wander before they locate a host.

Therefore,  people should take steps to  reduce the risk of taking the pests home with them when they leave their temporary accommodations.

Since bed bugs crawl into cracks and crevices near the bed, they suggested keeping suitcases off the floor.

“Placing luggage in the bath tub may be an option since it has smooth sides and may be harder for bed bugs to access,” Brown noted.

“If there’s any positive at all to bed bug bites, it’s that they’re relatively painless,” Gold said. “Typically they’ll feed and be gone and you won’t even know it.”

However, about half of all people bitten have an allergic reaction to the saliva injected while bed bugs feed, Brown said.

“It’s the people with the allergic reaction who develop the welts,” she said. “This also explains why there have been many cases where people are unaware that they have bed bugs – because they aren’t reacting to the bite – as well as why one person develops welts while another in the same room doesn’t.”

Continue Reading More: How Texas Wildfires Have Fueled Bedbugs

9/11/2011 Bedbug Infestation Way Up In Central Ohio Reported From Grove City Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force Summit

Until about 10 years ago, a bedbug was nothing more than a character in a nursery rhyme. How things have changed! 

Reports of bedbug infestations in Central Ohio are up and so was the attendance at Friday’s Central Ohio annual conference on bedbugs.

Close to 400 people gathered in Grove City for the 4th annual Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force Summit. 

What they learned is that bedbugs in Ohio are more resistant to household insecticides than bedbugs in other parts of the country.

“That is definitely one of the main reasons why the problem is a little worse in Ohio jurisdictions than in other areas of the country,” said Gene Harrington, vice-president of National Pest Management Association.

Ohio State University entomologist Dr. Susan Jones has been testing over-the-counter aerosol products that claim to kill bedbugs.

“They don’t work against bedbugs. This is a product that people are buying, and it says bedbugs right on the bug bomb, but you’re wasting your money,” Jones said.

The bedbug resistance to most insecticides can be traced to genetics. Their short life-cycles speed up the process of developing a resistance to the chemicals. Dr. Jones says the bedbugs have changed genetically.

“They have up-regulated their genes so they can really detoxify these materials,” Jones said.

Jones says her team of researchers is in the early stages of trying to develop a way to interfere with the bedbug genes that resist insecticides.  

She says there’s plenty of research to be done but that federal research dollars are in short supply.

For now, Paul Wenning, chairman of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force, says the only pesticides that work on bedbugs are those used by the professionals. “It has to be done by a licensed exterminator; they have to know what they’re doing; and they have to apply a mix of chemicals – not just one,” Wenning said.

Meanwhile, Ohio has a request pending with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to allow the state to use a highly effective chemical called propoxur against bedbugs. The US EPA has thus far been reluctant to approve propoxur for indoor use out of concern for possible toxicity to children.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Bedbug Infestation Way Up In Central Ohio

7/16/2011 BedBug Webinar To Discuss BedBug Insurance: Sign-Up Now For July 21st Event

Join us Thursday, July 21 at noon EDT (9 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. CDT) for a live web chat to discuss bed bug insurance. Bed bugs are spreading in increasing numbers, infesting apartments, hotels and homes. The problem has gotten so bad that insurance companies recently started offering special coverage for hotels and property managers.

Chat with the experts to find out more about bedbugs. Hartford Courant reporter Matthew Sturdevant will moderate an online chat featuring Gale E. Ridge, Ph.D., an entomologist who specializes in bedbugs at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven and chairwoman of the Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs, and Missy Henriksen,Vice President of External Affairs, National Pest Management Association.

Click Here To Sign Up For: BedBug Webinar To Discuss BedBug Insurance

6/20/2011 Bedbug Lawsuits Causes Concerns For Insurers

Jeffrey White, a research entomologist with Bed Bug Central in New Jersey, says the bed bug problem is worldwide, though he has seen a dramatic increase in the Northeast. “We use New York City as the barometer for what’s going to happen across this entire country over the next five to ten years.”

A simple review of the online resource, bedbugregistry.com, which shows real time reports of bed bug infestations, confirms the higher incidence of bed bugs in the upper Northeast.

White says he’s seen a rise in calls for expert advice and retention. The number of calls has increased dramatically in the past six months. “We are averaging at least one call a week.”

White notes the calls are evenly split between defense and plaintiff attorneys. The defendants involved are mainly hotels, group homes, apartments, and property management companies.

In White’s experience most lawsuits involving bed bugs settle prior to trial and he is only asked to review the case files and provide an opinion. He emphasizes taking proactive measures to identify and prevent bed bugs early on. Then, he recommends an aggressive action plan to treat the problem.

“Where people are finding themselves in a lot of hot water is when they stick their head in the sand about bed bugs. They don’t have any type of action plan created. They show up and don’t know how to react to the problem. Weeks go by and no action is taken, or they call the cheapest exterminator they can find and they come in and don’t do anything even close to a good treatment for bed bugs.”

Documentation is just as important, White points out.

“That is where a lot of cases have had to settle. People claim they did everything they could have done, but the paperwork does not reflect their claims.”

Pest management records and documentation is equally important. White hasn’t seen many pest control companies named in lawsuits; however, they can get pulled in at any moment.

While most of the lawsuits White has seen involve bodily injury and property claims for medical bills, scarring and furniture replacement, he has noticed a number of plaintiffs also claiming emotional distress.

“We’ve seen a lot of people that are claiming psychological trauma.”

Emotional distress claims range from not being able to sleep at night to having problems at work as a result of the lack of sleep.

During a breakout session of the Orkin-sponsored virtual bed bug summit held in April, Michael Weisburger, president of the PlanetPCO Insurance Group, emphasized that media attention is playing a major role on how bed bug claims are perceived.

“In the event of a highly publicized claim situation, the public will dictate whether or not the damages are “real”. What’s overstated and sensationalized is real! Insurance companies have to contend with all of this hysteria. Insurance companies are having a difficult time getting their arms around how to measure what losses exist and what potential losses exist in claims involving bed bugs.”

While typical property policies don’t cover damage or treatment of bedbugs, general liability policies do come into play. When investigating a bed bug claim and the potential for subrogation, adjusters should check to see if the insured is a named additional insured on the pest management company’s policy.

The NPMA’s Web site has a section devoted entirely to bed bugs. The NPMA recommends visual inspection as the preferred method of determining whether a bed bug infestation exists. The size and color of an apple seed, bed bugs like to travel hiding in suitcases, boxes, and shoes.

“Bed bugs can be very hard to detect until their levels of infestation get to be large,” says Henriksen.

A bed bug hatches from an egg and has five nymphal stages where it will shed an exoskeleton. Each time the new shell will harden and in the final stage it will become a male or female. The bed bug enjoys a blood meal at each stage and will feed multiple times as an adult. The lifespan of a bedbug is typically three months, though they can live up to a year if food is limited. The female will go through multiple reproductions, laying approximately five eggs at a time and between 20 and 100 in her lifetime.

Henriksen recommends watching out for itchy bumps or welts. Bed bugs tend to bite in a pattern or line. When changing sheets it’s a good idea to inspect the bed, mattress, headboard, box spring, and dust ruffle. Pepper-like flakes can be a sign of bed bug excrement or blood debris.

Continue Reading More: BedBug Lawsuits Causes Concerns For Insurers

6/8/2011 Just How Effective Is New BedBug Spray?  Ortho Home Defense Max BedBug Killer Is Supposed To Kill Before Infestations Set In

In response to a growing bedbug population, Scotts Miracle-Gro has come out with a product to help people fight back.

The product, Ortho Home Defense Max Bedbug Killer, is designed to kill bedbugs before they reach the infestation stage, the company said. It’s also recommended that the spray be used with other treatment methods.

Bedbug complaints in central Ohio totaled 450 in 2009, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That was up from 50 in 2005, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

Some experts recommend always using a professional first.

“Bedbugs are the most difficult bugs to deal with in an urban environment,” said Susan Jones, an Ohio State University entomologist. “Once an infestation takes hold, they can be hiding in so many different places.”

The spray isn’t meant to take care of any and all bedbug problems, said Rami Soufi, who leads the company’s control-product line.

“Our product is positioned for those whose son or daughter is coming back from college, and they see a bedbug,” he said. “If they see bedbugs in multiple locations of homes or in corners, at that point the infestation is out of hand and they need to consult a professional.

“The cost in involving a professional is very expensive. It will probably run into $100 to $200 a visit,” Soufi said.

The Ortho product is $7 or $8, and for an occasional instance, “definitely suffices,” he said.

Continue Reading More: Just How Effective Is New BedBug Spray?

4/1/2011 Bedbug Repellent Discovered: Researchers Discover Unlikely Bedbug Repellent

Swedish researchers are hoping they have found a smell so disgusting that even bedbugs are repelled.

It’s the smell of an alarmed adolescent bedbug.

And if their study bears out, and if they can synthesize, bottle and deploy the smell sufficiently, they may have found a useful weapon to add to the growing artillery against these blood-sucking pests.

The researchers, from Lund University in Sweden, were trying to determine the similarities between the common bed bug and the tropical bed bug.

The study appears in this week’s issue of the Public Library of Science One, or PLoS One.

The tropical bedbug, once confined to warmer, humid climates, has been branching into more extreme latitudes, such as Florida, the United Kingdom and Australia. Researchers are only just beginning to study them.

The Swedish scientists wanted to see how similar the two species’ pheromone, or smell, repertoires were.

And while they were doing this, they discovered not only do adult bedbugs hate the smell of adolescents, adolescents hate the smells of each other, too.

The researchers surmised that if you could bottle the nymph – or adolescent – essence, exterminators could use it to flush bugs out of their hiding places, and then kill them with other means, such as heat.

“(We) showed that the nymph blend elicited a stronger reaction in adults than the adult blend did,” wrote the authors in their study. “With increased infestation rates in mind, our findings have important implications for the development of an alarm pheromone-based pest control method that could target both species of bedbug.”

Gail Getty, a UC Berkeley entomologist who was not involved in the research, agreed.

“The research posed here provides valuable clues into the complexity of bedbug biology and hopefully provides a piece of information that will aid us in our bedbug battles,” she said.

Continue Reading More: Bedbug Repellent Discovered

2/20/2011 How Not To Let The Bedbugs Bite: New BedBug Book Chock Full Of Information On Prevention & Treatment

Humans have been tormented by insects since we first entered caves, but the bedbug is in a class of its own. They’re tiny, tenacious and love to travel.

New York-based entomologist Ralph Maestre makes a strong argument in The Bed Bug Book(released this week by Skyhorse Publishing) that we shouldn’t let sleeping arthropods lie — even if our own sleeping quarters aren’t infested.

He wrote the book, he says, to “intrigue, horrify, entertain and be useful.”

It is chock-full of information on the bedbug, its history, its life cycle and its current place in our ecosystem. Most importantly, the book is a useful guide for prevention of bedbugs and treatment if they do show up.

The key, Maestre says, is vigilance — and to make simple changes to thwart them. He says one reason our forebears put legs on beds is to keep the bedding off the ground and away from the bugs. We’ve forgotten that, and today we often put bedskirts under our mattresses — providing a perfect ladder for bedbugs to climb up and move in.

What follows is an edited version of the Star’s recent telephone interview with Maestre.

You say there is no other pest like the bedbug?

Because of the fear it induces in the human psyche. Even when an infestation is gone, there’s a lingering psychological recovery period of up to six months. It brings a lot of deep nightmares to the forefront.

Maybe it’s because they’re in our beds while we’re sleeping?

It’s also how we perceive the bedbug. If you have them you feel shame — because at some level you think it means you’re dirty or you’re poor or you’re not a good housekeeper. And if you have an allergic reaction it can feel like you’re being bitten again and again.

These were long periods when they went under the radar and you didn’t hear much about bedbugs. Why?

There’s many reasons for that. Many people thought that DDT wiped them out, and that’s not necessarily the case. Our appreciation of the importance of sanitation and the proper disposal of garbage helped. We changed — our furniture changed, our lifestyle changed, the way we did things changed. Then when they went away, we changed back. Now that this pest has returned we have to start thinking along those lines yet again.

Is pest management busier now than ever?

It’s a growing industry because the population continues to grow. But world travel is also allowing all sorts of new invasive species to enter the country, and bedbugs are just one.

So what are we doing wrong and what are we doing right?

What we’re doing wrong is panicking. There is absolutely no need. What we’re doing right (and it’s started in this past year) is that there are many people in the pest-control industry and government who are performing the research necessary to control these pests and educate the public. It’s vigilance that’s going to be the key to all of this: education, learning what they are, what they look like. Slowly but steadily, government is coming into the picture and realizing what steps are going to be needed to really help society.

You recommend checking for bedbugs everywhere. Do you really check every seam of your coat and every seat before you plant your butt?

I’m not talking about taking 15 minutes, but as you’re putting your coat on take a look-see on the outside, on the inside, stick your hands in the pockets and pull them inside out. And just that little bit, which takes maybe 10 to 15 seconds is probably going to be enough. If you know the location has had a bedbug problem then you want to be more thorough. If you’re staying in a hotel absolutely go through everything. If you go into a movie theatre, go through everything a little more thoroughly than you normally would. If you’re taking the train or the bus, take just a quick look-see.

Travel seems to be a big culprit.

One person may introduce the bedbug into a hotel room and then the next person is in the hotel room the next night. They may pick up one or two of them and then leave. Then a third person checks in. The exposure becomes exponential. That’s why vigilance in that situation is so important. It may take several days before the hotel itself becomes aware that there’s a problem in the room and reacts to it.

So there’s still much to learn about these guys.

They’re doing so at university levels all the time, learning about the behaviour. One example: There are 10 to 12 different pheromones that will attract bedbugs. Most males and nymphs (young ones) will congregate in and around that area, and so do females that aren’t pregnant. But for those females already pregnant, it acts as a repellent. That’s why no one has been able to come up with some sort of trap, like a roach motel, to attract bedbugs. You’ll catch some, but you’re not going to catch all of them.

Continue Reading More: How Not To Let The Bedbugs Bite